Some people took this strip as a hint that Maya was using the time machine to try to fix Jin. I don’t think that would explain why so many VIPs were present when it was activated, though, or why it would have been such a threat to the priests. Also Phix implied that Jin was present just out of curiosity. Still, it may have been a side-effect, intentional or otherwise.

I think that this is actually the second time that Jin said that the calendar machine had been helping her (or maybe Monica said that Jin said that). I’m not sure where to look, though.

It could be that Jin is wrong. I still think that the most likely way for her to pick up the ghost was by going to the temple to destroy the time machine. She might think that destroying the machine made her revert, even though it was something else that happened simultaneously.

In which case I wonder if the only significance of that strip was the fact that it’s the first appearance of glyph speak/thought and that the Orion constellation was a common denominator in the two ancient pyramid building cultures that seemed to have a connection to the chimera.

The entire outline definitely looks like Kokopeli to me. Orion’s belt is in there (at about the knee part of Kokopeli). I’m going to have to watch for Orion this fall and see if that Kokopeli outline is there too … that would be too cool

I posted a comment on that strip – it looked sooooo lonely sitting there with no comments.

If you remember, it was revealed earlier in this story arc that after the calendar machine was destroyed, she “became as she once was”. She had some pretty nasty mental issues before the calendar machine was built and set into motion. Also remember that her memories weren’t erased every time the calendar machine reset itself like the other Golem Girls, so she’s had 50-odd times about 1400 years worth of time and experience to overcome whatever problems she’d had–until now.

Was the calendar machine helping through it’s operation or was it the mission to “fix” it that helped (by the fact that she had a mission)? Did the fact that she lived the last few (from her perspective) years over and over again help? Was it some combination of the avove?

The sphinx monument that they are sitting on was actually an image of the chimera that the GG’s become when united. This monument was a warning marker. I believe the comic(s) explaining it was linked in the comments a couple of pages back.

Interesting. Jin isn’t in denial – even though “de Nile” is close at hand (yeah, I know, bad pun, I’m sorry) – by not refuting Bud’s comment she’s admitting her mental troubles and fear and acknowledging she’s a danger. The problem is, facing up to the truth doesn’t help much, since there’s no clear way to change this situation and fix herself.

And Bud’s body language goes from cautious to casual suprisingly fast, here. The GGG have been together so long they probably know each other as well as they know themselves.

Hey gang. Good to be back. Finally have a compy with internet again, after some rat-bastard boot-sector virus fragged my desktop’s harddrive. I CAN’T BELIEVE I MISSED THE ORIGIN STORY ISSUE OF CRIMSON MANTIS! There is a special hell for people who live to spoil other people’s lives.

You should totally check out my blog, and see if maybe linux is right for you. Most distros are almost completely virus-proof. The latest version of Linux Mint (v 10, codename “Julia”) can be installed to a windows partition; it’s called Mint4Win. There’s a bit of a performance hit compared to installing it to a linux partition, but less risk of data loss.